Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth In Depth With Walter Mosley 20240712

Welcome to booktvs fiction edition. Youve written 50 fiction books. Lets start with devil in a blue dress, the book that launched a series who is easy rawlins . Guest a kind of every man for the black community in the middle of the twentieth century. His whole view of himself has changed. He came back to southern texas and realized he could no longer live there because of what he has learned and he and thousands of others, from texas and louisiana moved to los angeles. What we do is follow him as a kind of unofficial detective. What he does is reveals what life was like in parts of los angeles that havent been talked about. Host how did you come up with the name . Guest i was writing a story and there was a voice speaking firstperson talking about a party he was given and how he was trying to raise money to pay his rent and a woman he was in love with who was in love with another guy and mouse comes in and looks at the person who is talking and says hey, e the, how are you doing . That is where he came from. Host what voice is he supposed to represent . Guest it is interesting. What he represents is how the africanamerican voice is one of the voices in the choir of america. Host did you set out to use him as a vehicle for social commentary . Host any good novel. Guest doesnt have to be a great novel or a very good novel but any good novel that talks about any character has to talk about how that character is anchored in society and the culture and the politics. If you dont do that it is not, you dont have a real character so it seems to me that everybody does that. What is different is not a lot of people were doing it with black mail heroes. Becomes a Strong Social commentary not necessarily because that was my intention but i was the only person doing it for a while. Host a review of your book, for once a black mans feelings are honestly expressed in traditional detective literary form. Host guest that is true, the traditional form and a black character. I am not trying to take anything from either of those things because otherwise the people i am representing, that is one thing i dont want to do. Host did you aim to create this as a series . Guest not necessarily but i had written another book called gone fishing. They were younger coming of age and the swampland. All the publishers said it is a wonderful book but not commercial and it is not commercial because this is back in the late 80s, white people dont read about black people, white women dont like black women and they dont read. That was the notion. They couldnt publish it. They were wrong but the fact they were saying it made it true. That i wrote devil in a blue dress and when i went to the publisher this is great because they have black detectives now but then they said we dont just want to buy one book, we will buy two so the decision was made by the publisher that it would be a series, wasnt my idea but i liked it. Host you call him a hero. You describe him as a gun in one pocket and a short fuse in the other. Host a lot of our heroes that are on battlefronts have to be willing to explode into violence and defend themselves but how they make decisions whether or not to do it and to control that is the point. In moby dick the cook is throwing detritus off the side and the sharks are in a feeding frenzy and they are eating it and the chef starts to lecture them. Angels are just sharks that learn to control their appetite, trying to tell sharks they dont have to be what they are and that is what you have with your character. Host when does devil in a blue dress take place . Guest 1948. It is an amazing event for change. Los angeles, 240,000, may be 300,000, 100,000 people a year in Southern California from then until now. Part of that was black people from southern texas and louisiana. This is an amazing amount of change more than any place else in the country. The ideas are building, the culture is building, the relation between the races is building. A wonderful time. Host he is a world war ii veteran. What story are you trying to tell by making rawlins a world war ii veteran . Guest world war ii was an amazing change for everybody. From southern texas, louisiana, one of my fathers stories is he left to go to the war was 100 people that he knew and they were in it together and went all the way through, 10 or 12 died, most not from violence or disease but when he got back to texas almost everyone he knew was dead already. He realized he was safer in the largest war in history of the human race than he would have been at home in his bed. Host when e. Z. Rawlins returns after world war ii and makes his way from texas to los angeles how is he treated in texas or los angeles . Racism was institutionalized in the south, institutionalized and so for one thing there were no jobs he could yet. Whatever he learned in the war he wasnt going to get those jobs in texas or tennessee or mississippi or anywhere else. This is the first and biggest problem. I cant make a decent living. I cant own anything that cant be taken away but the biggest problem, in los angeles you have an extraordinarily rich police departing, police. You and if youre a white woman, they will definitely stop them and they can do what they want to him and he represents something certain people want to hold down and they are afraid of but theres a lot more opportunity. Host inside of that in los angeles. Guest any job you want. Almost any job you want you can get. Nobody will take your property based on race. You will never have a sign saying whites only. Guest part of the great migration happening, why did you make that part of the story . Guest i am from los angeles, the black people in la, one of the most important streets on central avenue, the major music of america started there or moved through their. These people stories havent been told. There is a giant part of los angeles history that no one was going to write about. You dont exist unless you exist in fiction. People like nonfiction but dont pick up history books because i want to learn something, better to talk about it and store it. Host you are right, devil in a blue dress, half the people in that crowded room migrated from houston after the war and not before. California was like heaven to the southern negro. People told stories about getting out of work to retire when they. The stories were true for the most part but the truth wasnt like the dream was life is so hard in la and if you work every day you still find yourself on the bottom. What were Race Relations like . Guest problematic Race Relations with the police but also the sub conscious and unconscious of america there was a notion for a long time that the best thing to be was right, whatever that means. The best thing to be was to be inculcated with this european culture, Something Like you were better, even if you didnt work hard you are better because of what you were, not what you do. If you were very smart, chicano or black or asian people look down on you and make assumptions about what you could do it couldnt do it if you did better than you should be able to do there was anger and resentment. That was a lot to go through. It was hard. It is still hard today but it was hard then for people to see what they were looking at without putting something on it that wasnt true. Host how is it for black men versus black women . Guest there are no verses between black men and black women. People are more afraid of black men, more afraid of their anger and also what has happened to them. The response of women is usually not violent, men it is. Black men have been kept out of the hero category even in the greatest black literature of the twentieth century. The black characters were less heroes and more protagonists. People like Richard Ellis or almost anyone. I want to be that guy. Guest industry becomes the next plantation. Guest i dont remember reading that. When i hear it i feel that it is your labor. The interesting thing, that people of color suffered from working hard. Today in america, as well, and they dont care what gender you are. America is responding to that. It is their fault this has happened but it is not worth it. And unchecked capitalism. Host easy rawlinss home is important to him. Not just in the easy rawlins series. Small Business Owner with the bookstore in la in the 1950s. The concept of ownership. Who has it, who doesnt . Guest if you go back to the beginning of america a citizen has to be a property. There is a political connection, that you have citizenship with. If you are not a Property Owner you are a migrants interview ari migrant you are not that important. You cant vote and people dont Pay Attention to you. People gerrymander you out of the system but to own property that cant be taken away this is my land because most people before the war are rural so whether you are raising cattle or growing cotton it means something in the fact that makes me a citizen. Host this is a mystery novel, crimes are committed and easy rawlins has fought on the Justice System. I thought it was wrong for a man to be murdered. And more Perfect World i thought the killer should be brought to justice but didnt believe there was justice for negroes. I thought there might be justice for black man if he had the money to brief it. Money isnt a sure bet. The closest to god i have ever seen in this world. Host i wrote that. Most people in america, when i wrote this book i think a lot of people thought there is justice and justice is not based on how much money you have or who represents you or how popular you are. If i dont have money i wont have a fair shake and if i dont have money i wont get a fair shot. Black people in america have known since we have been here, time has gone on many more people understand it. First they only understood their appreciation of music and culture like the blues and certain elements of jazz. As time has gone on and general knowledge. Guest host part of the motivation, did you choose the form of a mystery novel because of that . Guest i chose the form because i like mysteries and liked Raymond Chandler and ross mcdonald. The Justice System just appeared. It wasnt like it was my goal to write it out. Anyone will make different decisions. I think this is right or wrong. As a fiction writer i never try to tell you what you should think. I will tell you what easy rawlins thinks and Raymond Alexander thinks but i wont tell you what you should think. Host i watched a review of one of the easy rawlins books, she suggested to her audience you really need to read the whole series. Could Walter Mosley be from beginning to end because if you pick up one book you dont know how easy rawlins knows could there be an index for how he knows . Guest it means when you see a book and wants to read it, you got to read all 14 of them. You barely have time to read one. Each book, you may not know the events that led up easy rawlinss relationship but we do know how he knows mouse, how he feels, and not a chapter. Host you continue on in devil in a blue dress and focus on easy rawlins in la. Your latest book down the river takes place in new york, blackandwhite pd investigators or protagonists, what inspired you to write this story in this city where you are in new york . Guest there was like a political spark that inspired me to write this story. Eddie conway, in pennsylvania. The people protesting in san diego in new orleans. The response to a community that a guy walking down the street and the police will stop me and they search him and question him and let him go. As angry as this guy gets just walking down the street, has to make sure he never expresses that anger because he expresses that anger because something bad happens so if you add to that guy, a journalist or political activist, anyone who makes a movement, anyone who does that they get a target on front and back and both sides. I want to create a detective who was a policeman, even though he was black he was a policeman it is not going to feel sensitive about this and on death row. As he investigates the guys case and sees what happens he proves to himself beyond a shadow of a doubt this guy probably killed them. As far as he can tell. What happens when you know Something Like that and what decisions you make. Host what you said a little bit to remind our viewers who that is guest a political activist journalist in philadelphia who the police say got into a gun battle with them, he was sentenced to death. For me if you kill somebody, whatever the law has to say that is what you have to do. If there were extenuating circumstances, it is true of him but a lot of people here. When you see somebody on top of somebody and shooting him, a policeman should never be doing that, never. And what everybody else is thinking and feeling and how they will respond and that is what the novel addressed. Host did you speak to lamea . Guest now. Host how did you grab from that story . Guest that story is our story. I was watching a guy, more than anything else the guy was being interviewed, there was another one here. That the Police Become people who are trying to force you to fit inside an order that may not be conducive to your life and your lifestyle. Because of that you have to write about, so down the river even though its about these black characters, is about kind of like america and understanding that america and goes back to the issue about how much money you have and who is protecting you and whos taking care of you and who feels that you are in any. Host the next book is john woman due out in september. What is it about . Guest john woman, its a novel about a guy who is a historian but hes a historian and starts when hes a kid, hes going up, he killed a guy. Selfdefense but he kills a guy. And he completely recreates himself so that who he was he doesnt have the same name, he doesnt have the same birth certificate, doesnt have anything to same but he does become, he becomes what he has done so it becomes a deconstructionist historian. Its following him through this path of how he sees himself, how he sees the world around him, how he teaches and he discovers things about himself. One of the things he discovers is hes a sociopath. And that has helped him in america become successful. Wonder the things i believe, i believe that if there something wrong with you, if youre a sociopath of any sort, you will probably be more successful in america than if you werent. Host how do publishers respond to your ideas that are not in track to the hated. I go to the publisher, give them a couple of readings and then i said ill write a book like john woman or fortunate son, rls dream, all these books ive written here what i wanted to give them of that book they say no. I to another publisher, if you publish this book all right another history. Okay. Then i will publish the book and mystery and then they go no, no, no. Only mistress from now on. So then i go to another publisher. Its gone on forever. Host youve written a lot of books as you said. Do the characters in the book reflect people in your life . Guest thats a hard question to answer because obviously it must in some way. I dont write about myself. I dont write about people i know. I dont write about my mother and my father but i write about worlds that are experiences. So in a way mostly no. Host who is Raymond Alexander and how did you come up with the idea of his character, known as mouse . Guest mouse is an interesting character for me. When i was a kid my father had a friend who was, he was just as crazy as a mouse and he made his living doing lots of things but one of them was hijacking liquor truck. He would hijack a liquor truck and get a whole bunch of cases of whiskey and he would bring one of the cases to my father, hold this for a week while i come back. Of course my father put it away but one night that people come over and say ive got some whiskey, maybe another party would happen. When the guy would come back there would only be nine or ten bottles left and so he would say how much do you only, right . My father would pay him for the bottles. That guy was in a crap game in the barbershop and he got in an argument with a guy and he says you owe me a nickel. The guy said i dont tell you anything. I paid everything. He said you only a nickel and youre going to pay me right now now. The guy says no, so he kills them, just shot him right in the barbershop he was arrested and spent the rest of his life in prison. In a way i know what my father knows discovered i was too young to remember him so i never knew him. I dont remember him. I dont think about him but the story sparked mouse for me. Mouse is a very different character, but it comes from that story. Host 15 youtube review of your book, the women asked if you would make a book about Raymond Alexander, maybe right a book or two about him drinking you know host as a protagonist. Guest rayman is a pure sociopath. John woman is not a pure sociopath. He belongs inside the system from most of the things that he does. Everyone a certain set of circumstances happen, hes going to go with outside the box, but only then. Mouse lives outside the box. If youre a sociopath living outside the box its that interesting because you know what hes going to do. I never had a story in my head about raymond all by himself. Host who is jackson blue, who is he based on . Guest he has a lot of my characteristics him and paris mitten, they are very smart, really like the sedentary, intellectual pursuits, reading, writing, thinking, debating. Jackson blue is a technologically really brilliant and he does everything about computers before computers know them themselves. I like writing about the characters because its a rare thirst only things that are not written about black men but one of them is this guy is a genius. He can do anything. Hes also really a coward. Hes afraid of his own shadow and a shadow goes a great distance but hes completely frightened of it, and i like that also because not everybody has to be big and strong and courageous. Hes small and scrawny and afraid of anything. Also i like that character, special because its also a genius. Host hes a computer genius. You were a Computer Program director does. I was not a computer genius but i was a programmer and i like kind of giving him that problem. Host in one of the books easy rollins says about jackson blue that he only kept bookshelves everywhere in his home once he made it, and only kept books he was going to read twice. You have that same philosophy . Guest because its kind of a waste. You look at your bookshelf and 12 books you have on the top that you have a look at them for 12 years. They are not do anything on the shelf but you know if you give them to use bookstore or library up with them outside in the box, people will pick them up and read them, and thats what books are for. They are to be read. Fear not just supposed to sit on a shelf. Host why is that important, reading . Guest i think reading is important because its the closest thing that we have active thinking. I love music. I love film in and movies and f like that but those things are much more passive as a rule. But when youre reading, you are actually creating the images that your reading about and the thoughts and the ideas and the systems of thought, and so when youre reading like that, your mind is getting exercise that it doesnt get doing anything else, other than working and learning, and work from experience, or being educated by somebody posted you like your parents or a boss who is concerned about you. Host was there a message you were sending about education and the importance of reading in your books . Easy rollins realized he needs to read more. He says to us and wants to drop out of high school yes, but you need to read with me everyday and you need to explain to me what you write in your own words. He has this character jackson blue is a reader. Guest theres no competing with jackson. If you read you will not end up in jackson put anyway. It didnt start out liking it and like it. Thats an interesting thing to talk about and to support the mind is a really important sphere, and that we had to Pay Attention to that mind and the role of certain ways we can do it. So much of talking about especially black man in america, they are brutish, primal, they are, you know, really sexual, all these things come all things im happy about but brutish, primal sexual but also i like reading, you know, the history of the world because history of the world is interesting to me. Ive always known in my life really intelligent black men who could read and discuss and play with ideas with other people, and thats really important. I think everybody should be writing about it, not just me. Its not the only think that a think, and i dont, its omitted in order to be a writer you have to read. I would say im not sure thats true. The greatest novelist in the lineage of the west is homer. He was blind and illiterate but he knew how to tell stories. Telling stories is more important for a writer than reading other stories that people write. That doesnt mean that reading is an important it just means it may not make you a writer. Host what about what you read . Because you wrote in blonde faith that the librarian and easy rawlins easy rawlins comes into the library and shes a black woman reading catcher in the right and she has a scout on her face and he asks her you like the book . She said i do but i can imagine a black kid on the future reading this book. How are they supposed to relate . Guest thats true. Host catch a ride is about his life tranter if i had his money i would be happy. I do is tell ebay would kill himself if they got all his money. They have nice big house and thats a notion. I think i went any limit on what you should read because what you like and what you dont like, who knows what . Its not defined by your gender, by race, i your class. None of that. You might love reading Charles Dickens or the idiot or, okay fine. But you should read what you love to read. If you open a book, a lot of the stories really draws me in. Then read it. If its a comic book fine. If its a george elliott, fine. I dont care. Another character. Host another character throughout the series of easy rawlins is at a may. Wishy . Guest at inmate is that woman at a may has a strength and weaknesses black women have had to carry since i got dragged over here. Children that they cant keep or control, men that they cant keep or control, lies that they have told together whether they can control whats around them or not. Theres a strength that defines the world around them. This is not all black women of course but etta may is the ideal woman. Which is why both miles in easy loves them and she loves both of them. The promise is she loves mouse more and more of a problem than easy would ever be but you cant help who you love. Host and mama joe. Guest the kind of mystical and spiritual moment that i think a lot of us have and create because theres without it we become less, because the society defines us as last. But if i believe i can reach a place that you cant understand, that gives me ground. It gives me, its like owning property. Because i understand something about the world that you couldnt possibly understand. Whether thats true or not doesnt even matter. Host after devil in a blue dress you wrote a red death. Readers will find easy eat into the political and legal and moral carpets of los angeles in the early 50s when redbaiting and blacklisting or official policy and racial tensions boiled. What were the political, legal and moral carpets of that time . Guest my mother was jewish, i mean, born jewish, and her family had come here around 1908, 1909, 1910. First to new york and then migrated to los angeles. These people were people who understood the plight of black people in america because they had almost the exact same experience in europe. They live in ghettos. People hung them. People burned them. People call them a different race, excluded them from society in general. But a lot of them because of that were communists and they were part of the revolution. They were behind the revolution. The revolution didnt like them but they were a big part of creating it. One of these characters is a guy whos living in los angeles who has decided to get secrets that america has to everybody. And because of that he was being run down. It wasnt somebody who actually had done what he thought was right, the government thought it was wrong. It was against the law, and easy got very involved in what was happening with that guy and his daughter. Host so what is redbaiting . What is happening at this time in a country and in l. A. . Guest thats the thing, if you were we hated the russians in the late 30s, and then as soon as stallman realize that hitler didnt really like him, we made a deal with them and they became our allies and a lot of people supported russian and rushes really heroic battle against germany. Russias but as the 50s game those same people became a great target. So anybody who had been a socialist, who had belonged to a group, maybe had been friends with somebody mightve one day done it, really oppressed by mccarthy and by almost everyone. And those people with the first i think socalled White Americans who began to understand how you could be singled out, tortured, arrested, imprisoned, kept from having jobs for something he believed in come for something you were, how was this impacting africanamericans at this time . Guest less and less. Some very famous one like paul robeson, Harry Belafonte had some problems got his friends did but you kind of had to, if you were not successful it really wasnt house on unamerican activities wasnt going to call in the janitor who had the communist manifesto in his pocket because they didnt get any kind of political currency. A lot of us were just, right, you can say whatever you want the get nobody was listening. But if you had an important job, if you had an important position, if what you said impacted many americans, had any kind of political impact, then you were treated poorly. Most poor people they kind of went right over. Host were Race Relations shifting at this time in the early 50s . Guest the thing about america and shifting Race Relations, they are all we shifting but they never, like, get solved. Its a shifting, shifting, shifting but still your people wandered around saying im white, even though it doesnt make sense to say youre white. In europe there were no white people. There were britains and like ten ten different races there, the druids and really the celts, goes on and on, the scots. The spanish in the greeks and the scandinavians. None of them, the scandinavians didnt think they were like the same race as the greeks. They knew they werent. Even the greeks and the romans didnt think it with the same race. But they came to america. Oppressed, and wanted to kill the indians because they owned the land that was theirs and so the need to get rid of them. They enslaved black people to build the land, and so because they had socalled red people to slaughter and socalled black people to do a lot of the worst kind of labor, they needed a racist so they said where white. Thats the only way it makes sense. If you have blue eyes or green eyes or brown eyes or what kind of her, what kind of body shape, people are different. They are different physically but so what. I think that for me is whats most important, but the socalled white people say, well, we are a race, we have a common history and the common language which of course is not true. These people over here are Something Else or something less, and that unconsciously that stays with life. Its like impossible to get better as long as youre saying thats a black person and thats a white person. Because both of those things are not true. Theres no truly black people. There are no truly white people. Theres just various shades as we relate to each other. And so to say things are shifting or changing, is get better, people make laws. We do all kind of things can we get our president but still underneath it theres a problem that can always, as was the case with the jews in europe, fall backward into chaos. Host i want to invite our viewers to call in and join us in this conversation. Walter mosley our guest on the special in depth fiction edition. Here are the phone lines. As we make our way through most of the 50 bucks that mr. Mosley has written, fiction and also some nonfiction as well so would love for all of you to join us in this conversation on this sunday afternoon. I ask the question because, about red death and its regulations are shifting because easy rawlins has seen more black men of authority at this time, black cops. Guest i think that he is seen it but also at the same time hes recognizing what you have to give up in order to move into that level of authority. Because d. C. Is a guy, he does favors for people in his community. Theres nobody telling him how you can do favors for or how you can do favors. He makes every decision about what hes doing on a casebycase level. Thats it. He can do what is right. I think it also recognizes that people have power, which he likes, they have to give up some of their choice and that becomes the thing for him. The thing for me, thats whati say well, yeah, things shift but because we still believe in the basic untruths of it, they never get solved. Host a backup of the book is the church. During this time what role, even today i guess, what role does the church and the preacher plate in black americans lives . Guest in the entire world, the more oppressed you are the more religion takes up primary role in your life, because you need an absolute form of organization to hope for a better time in this world orbit on it, and you also need people who will organize around you so everybody will eat, everybody will get food. This this is a hopeful. It doesnt always happen. In the black community we were so shoved together so tightly, so segregated, that the church was with one of the only ways to be organized. We didnt have Political Organization because you at the representation outside of the community. So the Church Becomes one of the strongest forms of us being able to take care of ourselves and to find consolation. Host how did influence your life . Were your parents religious as you were growing up . Guest no. My parents wanted to be the was so funny. My parents said wednesday we really discuss religion because he hoped it was true but decided it wasnt. But that the sink to my parents both work for the board of education in los angeles so they sent me to a private baptist school, cost nine dollars a week to go there, which was a lot of money then. They sent me to this back to school because it was all black kids of all black teachers and taught africanamerican history in the 50s and he really wanted they like me. The best thing, the most important thing for child and in education is that you are loved. Its so funny because you think they learned the math, english, but first i felt loved and the felt cared for and they felt a part of things, not outside of things and he knew that wouldnt happen to me in the schools in los angeles, and Public Schools so they sent me to this private school. Host what impacted that have on your . Do think it impacted who you are today . Guest im sure did but i dont know how. Host in your career . Guest im sure it did but i dont know how. Honestly, i was never religious. I never believe in anything here we would read bible verses over in this church now and then. But i loved it but and i dont know, the biggest impact is why your parents and that happened and then my childhood friends come untrue that was very important. Theres some things i was tell people that the novel is bigger than your head and you can think about the perimeter of the entire novel, then its not a novel. I think its true about life, that there are many things that it impacted me and changed me and made me who i am, and its kind of difficult for me to know what those things are. Host another aspect of this book, and it carries over throughout the easy rawlins series is alcoholism. Easy rawlins is struggling with it, a lot of the characters are struggling with addiction. You wrote in later books, lakers shines when the light hits it reminiscent of precious things like jewels and gold. Whiskey is a living thing capable of any motion that you are, and whiskey is solace that holds you tighter than most lovers can. Guest i think its true. A lot of people agree with that. You do have to be black in america to think i need to self medicate. I was really, like i drank so much when, when i was young, like 16 to 21. I almost died twice and adequate for 40 years. Started again but i quit for 40 years because i thought god, i dont want to die. I was like that, even writing. I knew it was such a danger because of what it can do is they can destroy you and it has the potential to destroy you. It also has, i think my father drank everyday, and im not so sure that because he drank, there are people he didnt kill. Im absolutely sure of that. Host why do you say that . Guest because he was enraged. He was a really proud man. He was very successful in anything he could do. He could do almost anything and he was very social. He was a good leader, but he was a black man in america in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 30s, and all of that time he was treated as less. He was talked down to. He was pushed aside for people who were not as good as he was. People who look like that, they are angry. A lot, and alcoholism, theyve been at but alcohol . Guest he was about to go see this guy who knows nose isg to give him trouble and he has a drink and the guy talks and then last. He never directly went to work, he never drank at work but when he got home, just to blow off steam, you know. I think thats true for so many people in america for so many drugs. The issue is how we live our lives. The way our lives are organized, are not the way human beings should live. The whole idea of, i wake up everyday at a certain type and go off to work and my kids go somewhere far away to be educated and i work really, really hard. I dont make quite enough money to assure a good life but i make enough money to get from day to day today. This is not the kind of way that people should live. Host how should they live . Guest i think you live in a society where you create enough that everybody has a little something, that the future as is should come that N Maintenance protections are there. Some people have more, some people will work harder. Some people will build a second store on their house but i think the idea that we are Tennessee Ernie Ford had the song that said i owe my soul to the company store. I think thats true for most people in this country better live in. Im not in any other country so i dont know but you are just deeper in debt every day, a little deeper in debt. Thats what is also in that song, another day older and deeper in debt. Thats i think probably a lot of people have and why a lot of people drink alcohol, smoke dope, do opioids. It dulls the pain. Host why did you quit . Guest why did i quit drinking . Because i kept on almost died. I put my arm through a plate glass window. I went off the side of the mountain. Host why did you start . Guest because i knew i was going to do anymore so i could. Because i do like drinking. I dont want to be drinking every day and trick myself into oblivion, that kind of stuff on what you wrote in one of your nonfiction books, 12 steps towards political revelation about addiction and how it relates to political oppression and consumerism. Guest i did, yes. That book, im trying to say, the system tells us these are the realities if youre alive, and this is how you should be. This is how you should be at work, i should be in school, in relationships, how you should be to your better but i think theres a whole other set of rules that we need to have and to satisfy. I havent written read that book and while i dont remember the steps but i do know that theres a system out there that doesnt really care about us in general, and we have to understand that and we have to control that system. Host once the system . Guest well, it ends up being people with the most power. Power. It ends up being the people who pay the politicians give them the money to be in a situation of control. I remember once i donated, i think a lot of money like 10,000 or something to a senatorial candidate. Somebody asked me to and i said okay, ill do it. So i came up the sampras came up to me and said we are having lunch with the candidate. I said, who is we . That are ten people to gave 10,000, and so theyre going to lunch and it will be able to talk to this person. I went and we talked and i realized, i said, wow, what would i get if i gave 100,000 . What would i i get if i gave a billion dollars . But my power should be no more than my vote. Thats the ideal america, right . My power is my vote. Your power is your vote. But if you have like 100,000 and if youre a corporation or a very rich person, that 100,000 does mean anything. Just give it, but that person knows when i need reelection theres always of the people who vote but im going to come back to the person who gave me the hundred thousand dollars. Im not saying anything new here. This is the problem with america, where people confuse democracy with capitalism. They are two different systems, they are both fine but they need to be separate. Money shouldnt enter into my government. They should take money from me but they shouldnt in order to do, like taxes and stuff but not make donating or helping our lending can use my airplane or whatever i do for the job i give them after they get voted out. Host theres a lot more to go through with your books and a lot more topics to bring up as well but lets listen to what our viewers have to say as well. Lets go to steve who is in richmond. Steve, good afternoon. [inaudible] good afternoon. Guest hello. Caller ive been waiting for the longest time i have one of your best readers and my question, i had the wonderful opportunity to listen to you on an air and be able to talk to you is, have you gave much effort to get into other writing styles, whether somebody like the gentleman named turtle who has alternate history or things of that nature or even things that are more in Science Fiction and things . Guest ive written ive written 14 books of Science Fiction. Ive written at least ten literary novels, probably 24 mysteries, five or six books of nonfiction. Im working now with a fellow mystery writer named Gary Phillips trying to develop a western series. We will see if anybody in hollywood wants to buy it. Ive written erotica. Ive written in a lot of genres. In a matter fact have written almost every genre i do want to write in. I havent written a romance novel by dont really want to. So yeah, but but i think if yok at the different books, theres a lot of Science Fiction. One is called 47. Its about a slave on a plantation in the 1840s who meets this alien and who forms a bond with this guy called john, and how is life goes forward. Host were going to talk about some of those Science Fiction books, and here are some of them for our viewers. Always outnumbered, always outgunned. Futureland which was 2001. In 2005 he said you publish 47. The wave, also in 2005 and 2009 you wrote the long fall and in 2015 inside a silver box, and as we talked about this is not Science Fiction but your new book down the river unto the sea published this year. Lets hear from eugene who is in what state are you in . Comic can here . Host go ahead. Caller thank you very much. Ive got to tell you, mr. Mosley, and greta, thank you. For so many years ive had some of your books and you have always been an inspirational person today because i always wanted to write a book and we share the same last name, so when i look at your books on the shelves, it was just inspiring so much and then ive got to say that although fictional, the truth is really coming out in what youre putting out and what you are saying through all of your novels. I mean, it is tight. The most important thing that, like really inspired me, was when my father who was a marin, received the congressional gold medal and it gave me a base by which to write something that i felt to me was of great substance, and ive been going at it ever since and i had to tell you, mr. Mosley, i feel like im moving towards the downstroke with the endnotes and the bibliographies site just wanted to thank you for your inspiration all these years. Guest well, thank you very much, and also id like to say that maybe you dont need this now, but a while ago a lot of times people ask me, youre not, but a lot of people ask me how to write a novel . Its only about maybe an hours worth of talking a good explained that but, of course, use i dont have an hour to explained it. But it did write a book called this year you write your novel and that book is everything i know about writing novels. All such is what you say think about truth and fiction. I think theres more truth in fiction that there is a nonfiction because in nonfiction you keep editing things out, talk about a real event but you keep editing things out and so people usually only talk about one side of the story when there might be six or seven different sites of it. I appreciate that, though i think its a big challenge to write nonfiction. I love it, the people who do but its really hard. Host vicki in paris california. Caller hello. Pleasure to talk to you, mr. Mosley. I love your books because it brings back my childhood of living in visiting my sister during the summer in l. A. In the early early 60s, late 60s. My question to you is have you thought about making a movie out of black betty and maybe getting a director like spike lee, john singleton, Something Like that . Guest you know, i would love to make more movies about easy rawlins. Its not an easy thing to do, no pun intended. I try, i keep trying doing Television Shows or films, you know, i get to a certain point and then it doesnt work. I think theres a ninemonth window with black panther having been made of talking about a black male hero and film some good to try again was easy. I will start with black betty black betty would be good. Its not my choice, its hers. Host how did devil in a blue dress get made into a movie . Guest a lot of people were interested. I finally met a woman who just started in the business at that time named donna gelati. Donna knew the right moves to make and at the same time franklin was looking for me and so all kind of got together and the film got made. It was such a great film. All these great actors. It was really a perfect moment. Looking for another perfect moment. Host did you have a role in the making of the movie . Guest no. I wrote and executive produced always outnumbered, always outgunned which we did for hbo but in that one i was an associate producer. Carl frankl called the offensive what you think about this . I knew well enough i learned to say yes, carl, that sounds good, because he is going to do it anyway. Host the caller mentioned black betty. Black betty, white butterfly, at the center of these books are black women. What is happening at this time with black women and their sexuality, and has that changed . Guest black sexuality has always been a dominant moment in our lives and it also been really, really hidden. I think black women have often experienced the fact that their sexuality has been taken away from them in the general culture. So you see like blonde people and you are going what is that . Appreciating beauty is appreciating beauty based on some other culture or some other place, which by the by most white women didnt fit either but at least you could pretend. I think that black women have always had the weight of the community on their shoulders. Talking about sexuality, children. They were responsible for children. They were responsible for a kind of life that the rest of that came easy to the rest of america like in the 50s and 60s. And, of course, in my work black women have a prominent role butt i never say that im speaking for them. The great thing about literature in the 60s on up at least through the 80s black literature was dominated by black women. You have alice walker, Toni Morrison, Terry Mcmillan and many others, gloria naylor, and they really controlled literature for a long time. Black men did in the 40s and 50s and then the black women took over and now were trying to figure out how to share it. Host you write in white butterfly, easy rollins i was on the warpath against women and all the men i knew and those i did know were, too. Guest i dont remember writing thus i dont know what i meant. It doesnt sound good on a dont remember what i was writing about, you also talk with easy rawlins talks about not learning to respect women. Guest i think that come everything about, in the community was there were armed camps between men and women, and men were angry at women because the women seem to be asking them to do things in a way that was humiliating them, and women were angry at me because they didnt seem to stand up for what the women needed to keep home and heart together. There was a lot of that conflict. But at the same time it was a great love and understanding, that you have a guy who says its better if im not home because at least you would get public assistance. Im with you, i can get a job but you cant get public assistance. I leave and you can. Theres also a lot of people who get along really, really well. In most of the complex in most of the world most people dont hate each other. Its groups of people who get really angry and they are very voluble and people listen to them and not the reality. Host what are your thoughts on what are you trying to say in these easy rawlins books about marriage marriage in the black community trejo i dont know. I wouldnt say that, you know, somebody asked me to comment on it i wouldnt have anything to say about it. Marriage is an interesting institution and it hasnt really evolved with the rest of our cultures. Before world war i knowledge doubled every century all the way back. World war i it doubled and kept getting faster and faster. Knowledge of doubles every ten months now i think is the term. This is why everything we do is almost obsolete before we get halfway into it because now we do Something Else. Now we are doing Something Else. The way we can work. I used to drive a taxi and hat and medallion but that doesnt work because uber came in and took over. Robotics are taking over labor. So i think that marriage in america in general doesnt have the same place that it did a century ago. But its hard to change that notion. Its hard to change it. Its hard for black people but its hard for everybody so i would never say that im trying to comment on the institution of marriage, because before i finish the sins he will have changed. Host lets hear from james who was in philadelphia. That afternoon, james. Caller yes, good afternoon. Mr. Mosley, i met you at Temple University i think is round 2009, 2010, you were on a panel and you actually signed a book for me, actually it was futureland. My comment to you is i dont know if theres any other wider like you to think the memories about writing is the ease at which you move through genres. Its ironic with the first caller said, asked you to write Science Fiction because ive read many of your Science Fiction books. I read the wave and i just been recently joined some of your crosstown to oblivion series which is short stories, particularly stepping stone and the gift of fire. I love those two macbooks, those two short stories. The other thing, comment i would like to make is the easy rawlins books, mouse to me, i often wonder sometimes it was mouse, how mouse would deal with some of the fictional characters. I i would like to see if mouse, maybe you can get together with ace atkins to see how mouse would deal with hawk . That would be very interesting. I think hawk is a bad meant but i think mouse give him a run for his money. But but i just want to say im a great admirer of yours and i think in my mind today may be the best fiction writer writing today. Guest thank you so much. I appreciate that. Im going to keep that with me. Listen, i love to write in john rest. I love to create characters who i think have a strong place in the world hawk does certainly in the spencer stories but thats the thing that you want. Also want to write about heroes because i know that theres so many heroes coming out of our community and those heroes need to be heard and need to be paid attention to. Host heres a comment, facebook, from one of our viewers Michael Ballack who wrote in. I believe you once said why you cant write a decent home to save your life, to continue to write poems and read the poetry of others because it informs your fiction writing. Could you elaborate . Guest i think understanding poetry is one of the basic requirements for writing fiction, that poetry does everything. It does metaphor. It does similarly. It does condensation. It does music. It does you choosing just the right word, not five or six words but one word that says the thing that you mean. It brings things together in a form that abstract but feels real. Poetry is the most important thing that we writers need to know and understand. Host why . Guest its the original, its like the original language. If theres one language or everybody that started in the beginning, it would be poetry because thats the way we understand the world and thats the way we express the world. We see material but we are thinking something thats the on that material and then we bring those two things together, the pedestrian. Host another question from hate facebook. Were you encouraged to write by a friend, publisher or your idea . Guest my idea. I can only write easy rawlins. If i only wrote easy while i wouldve stopped a long time ago. Host before we get too far away tell our viewers who may not read like betty a little bit about the book, what it is about. Guest it was about a woman who was living a really hard life and was really hard set in that light. I mean, the set in that light. I was thinking from the beginning is going to write a story about a woman whose life is harder and harder and more difficult and then she would die at the end and would be a kind of tragedy. But i realized that somebody who loves so much and is so connected to her world, that would be a relief death. That was a whole purpose of the writing that book. Its one of the most successful easy rawlins novel. Im liking the new ones. Charcoal joe i thought was pretty good. Host why did you say that . Guest you got more of an insight into mouse. Easy, rather than being working with mouse to do something, works with fearless jones from another series. It was so, it was really, you really begin to understand what would be like if you had extraordinarily successful met man black men with these criminal or not, most successful people have some crimes in the closet and use of hard his life is, and in seeing that, easy being involved with this guy, you also see how powerful easy is. As a matteroffact easy lines at how powerful he is which he never really knew. Host explained that evolution. Guest at one point hes talking to charcoal joe and he is saying, so i do always been trying to lie to me, to miss treat me, to try to get me killed . And joe says no, listen, easy, i would never mess with you. Youre the most dangerous man in los angeles. What are you talking about . Im talking about your friends, Christmas Black, red bird, mouse. These are the most dangerous man i know of. I wouldnt cross any of them and theyre all behind you. It becomes like his sociability in this world has given him a great deal of power. Doesnt give them money or all this other stuff but it gets him power which is an interesting thing. Some people wield great power but they are not successful in their capitalistic endeavors. Host you right at the beginning of black betty on the first page, its 1961. The world was changing and a black man in america the chance to be a man for the first time in hundreds of years try to yes. I think at that point where we are entering the 60s, people are being, are getting educations. It used to be in the 40s and before you could study for phd at harvard if you were black but they would never give you a phd. There was always, you know, something being held back, so they beheld away. And in the 60s the opportunity was there. The problem is that it was still harder to achieve your goals, and your goals had to be smaller. And you had to act in a in a cn way. Its like madame curie. They asked her to get back one of her nobel prizes because she was having an affair and why should i give it back . All you guys have affairs. Im keeping my nobel prize. But there was an expectation on her, as are all black people in america even today that certainly in the 60s that skillful people down and back. Because even the fact of easy saying it means something different, right . Host claire in davis california you are next. Caller walter, its clarence major. How are you . Guest howre you doing . Whats going on . Caller thanks for the good word about poetry and congratulations on your new novel. I wanted to ask you if you could talk a little bit about your writing habits, maybe the right in the morning or in the afternoon or at night . You know, what are your writing habits . Guest okay, i can do that. Thanks a lot, clarence. Nice to talk to you. I see creation like what i say novel is bigger than your head, the creation is in your head is your conscious mind. Creation comes from a practice not unlike psychoanalysis. I mean to say, you spin every day, knee, everyday two to three hours writing. That writing is like free associations, things are coming up, im writing them, im putting them in order in the story that im writing them. And then the next morning i write and the next morning i write. That 22, 21 hours in between those kinds of writing, all of this stuff is happening in parts of my head that i have no awareness of, but when they get up that next day to our new thinks there. New things have come to the surface and i say okay, all right this and ill write this about that. It goes on and on and on, and ive written almost every day for the last 28 years. Every once in a while if im sick or if i have to get up at 3 00 and get on an airplane i dont do it but every other time i wake up, i write for probably three hours, sometimes only two but its just everyday everyday everyday, and i find everyday i write is a day i get deeper into my understanding of that larger story that im trying to tell. Host when you are not writing how are you collecting your thoughts, your stories . Guest i just dont worry about them. When im writing its happened in the back of my head. And its hard to explain. But i talked to about it, look, just get 100 days days. Start writing today and everyday from the for the next 100 days right for just an hour, maybe an hour and half everyday just right. You will see that weight the wt you think in the way that your organizing and the way that plots come together better and better and better. And it happens over the years, to. Host you right write in yor books when youre describing different characters, you describe their personal features and how that reflects their personality. Do you study people . Guest not on purpose. I dont like its not like youre making those the idea, really its not an argument, but its an argument unmaking. To say, well, do you study people . Its a kind of thing about consciousness. Are you consciously its like you only have a structure you need. You just need to fill in the data. 511 or 72 or 31, or red or blue or pink or a sky or smallness or the floor. But its not that. You see all these things and you experience all these things that are floating around in your head and you write for lets say three hours and the stuff that you have written kind of reaches out to these things that are in your head but you would have thought about. You might have noticed them but you didnt study. You just noticed, and what whiskey looks like, when light is shining through it. Its not something i studied and said i can translate that into this. It translated in the back of my mind and then when i started writing, it came out. Host tom in culpepper virginia. Caller hello, mr. Mosley. Me and my family are great fans of yours. I want to ask a question. I heard that you been thinking about doing a a series. Do you think you can see Denzel Washington and don cheadle continue in the series of easy rawlins . Guest no. Thats a good question because i can see its i did ask them and they said no. So its not happening. Host why . What were the reasons . Guest they just said no. You know . Host why can you see it . Guest because really right now they have aged the right amount. So if i get for instant charcoal joe, mouse think these would be the same age at dens l and don would be. I would love that both have their own careers. They are doing other things. Dens l has been doing all of these plays and is a very interesting movies i really like his most recent film and don, same thing, producing, acting, moving further out into the world. That something they did and they did another moving on. I dont hold anything against them for doing it. I think i might go back to the beginning for easy anyway to try to make a film right now and start again from the beginning with devil in a blue dress and build from there so i will need younger actors. Well see if i can make my thoughts into reality. Host lets hear from audrey in richmond, virginia. Hello. Host hi, audrey, youre on the air. Guest youre on the air. Caller hello. Guest hi. Caller like everyone else said im a great fan and particularly happy about your comments you made earlier about readers and how important reading is because i think i may have in common with you just reading storiesment im not a writer at all. My question for you though about your stories is, about a character of yours called mcgill. And i was just wondering what made you write him and how he evolved . He seems like hes sort of a disstilllation of some of the other characters or whatever. How did he come about. Guest well, actually, a guy a publisher of mystery works and owner of a bookstore otto pensler said i want you to write a short story. I have a collection of stories this one about dangerous women. And i had the title called karma, it was about a young woman trying to get revenge against an older private detective who framed her father for something and he got killed. You dont know that at first, but shes trying to frame the father and frame Leonid Mcgill who he becomes for something he had done to her father 20 years before and she almost succeeds in destroying him, she doesnt. She died because part of the thing is she kills herself and shes going to blame him for her death, but it doesnt happen and leonid realizes that his whole life, hes been doing the wrong thing. And that he now has to turn his life around and start to do the right thing. The interested thing, hes current, hes today. He doesnt run into the same troubles that ec rollins or fearless jones would run into, its a different hue because the relationships of black people to the world is very different than it was, you know, in the 30s and the 40 as and 50s and the 60s. Im writing a short story if you call the darkness a short story also for otto because with he wants to publish one of mile per hour and its about leonid. Host wayne in texas city. Caller can you hear me . Yeah. Caller okay. You are a New Discovery for me and im enjoying watching you and im definitely a customer and im probably that youre aware of benjamin. Guest im not sure. Caller benjamin was a jewish plantation owner at bell chase plantation in new orleans and he was a member of a confederate secretary of war, secretary of state and attorney general of the confederacy under jefferson davis. Guest i feel like i do know him, but i lost the name. Caller anyway, youre probably also familiar with sal you know, im me and names is a very troubled thing, you know, i tonight know i knew about benjamin until i go back to the civil war, maybe i am, but why dont you tell me. Caller is a black jew from ethiopia. They were moved to the yeah, sure, okay, yeah, yeah. Caller okay, so the plantation owner outside of new orleans, a member of the confederate, and he goes to an auction in new orleans and buys a black slave, unknown to him. And the guy is from ethiopia so now youve got a black jewish plantation owner, unknown to him, he owns a black jewish slave and anyway, just something i wanted to share with you. Guest i like that. I like that story. Host how Much Research do you do for your books . History and newspapers, et cetera. The first time i was ready that and Jennifer Beal called me, and i love Jennifer Beal asked me the same question and how Much Research do you do . I want to research my character. And i tried to figure out how to lie and in the end, i dont research, i mean, when i finish writing a book ill go through it and make sure things arent wrong and make sure the cotton gin existed. It did. And fiction today, not historically, but today, fiction is more about character than it is about things. You know, im not trying to educate people about things, im trying to talk about how people emotionally deal in that cultural and technological world they find themselves. Host and i want to read this part of six easy pieces before you respond, maybe explain for the premise of six easy pieces, but theres still oppression, this is now the early 60s in l. A. Etta may one of the characters we talked about through the series responded to the comments that perhaps a young talented musician could make it just like Louis Armstrong did and she responds by saying this and for every one armstrong youve got a string of black boys graves going around the block. You know how the streets eat up our men, especially if theyve got dreams. Thats true, you know, that if youre born i mean, this is true for everybody if youre born in poverty, everything against you succeeding. And if you accept that militant attitude towards your advance, then youll survive. But if you have dreams that aim beyond that so much will be so much more will be against you than it is against, you know theres already a lot against people having dreams, but its so much more that a lot of people die from it and in all kinds of ways. Even people who are like at the pinnacle of success, and one going around the tour on train and had a diabetic attack and the hospital wouldnt take him and he was 39 years old. You get killed by all kinds of things. Sometimes somebody shoots you and murders you and lynches you and sometimes the door closes in your face. Host you write about emotions. Guest yeah, the emotion is the i think, it could be a lot of different things, but for me its the heroism of the character. The person whos going to tries to get beyond where he is or where she is to make it to a better place for themselves, which is going to help a whole bunch of other people and its going to help them no matter what, whether they succeed or whether they dont succeed. The fact in trying gets them there. Host lets take robert who is in philadelphia. Robert, go ahead. Caller hello mr. Mosley. Guest hello. Caller hello. I have been an admirer of yours for a number of years. I am a struggling fiction writer and as a retired social worker i find fiction an incredible release, especially since i had to immerse myself into intimately into the struggles of other people for a number of years and i see that very much in your work. But as a writer, i find that reading is as much important, if not more important than writing. So i was wondering what you read and what authors have been most influential to you. Guest well, you know, its such a thats always such an interesting question. I always start off by saying, if you have this young black woman who says, you know, somebody asks, well, who do you read . And first she says, well, Phyllis Wheatley because people dont know who she is and then one because they do know and alice walker, and maya angelou, tony morrison, ez packer, but the reason they tell you all of those writers is because they want you to think of their work in relation to this great work over here. But you know, the truth is that woman when she was a child, it was nancy drew that most influenced her because when youre a child, reading is an amazing thing, its real in your brain. Youre completely transported into the world of fiction. There are no more words being printed, theyre images and things happening. That same girl reading beloved would either kill herself or mother because beloved is a tough story for a child. And so same thing is true for me. I think it started off reading comic books and then later on, it was reading people like donald gowens, and also, you know, hughes, and old books like robert louis stevenson, so its not so much the writers or, you know, anything real that they were telling me, it was me enjoying the adventure of the book and then when i grew older, i loved the idea of telling the same kind of stories that, you know, in different ways that so much transported me. So, i think that thats the way that i would say that reading has at least impacted, if not influenced how i write. Well, were going to pick up on that point here in a little bit, but were about at the little over halfway mark here in our conversation on this sunday afternoon and so were going to take a short break. So hang on the line if youve dialed in. Keep dialing in with your questions or comments for Walter Mosley. Well take a short break and when we come back, well come back to your conversations and want to show you as we go to this break, the trailer from devil in a blue dress, 1995 directed by Carl Franklin. Well be right back. Hi rollen, l. A. Was a world of sunshine and shadows. Hey, how you doing, baby . Black and white. Weve got no work here. My name is not fella, my name is esizekial robbins. What kind of work. Shes been gone two weeks. And a company have you seen a white girl named delilah, dalia. Her name is daphne, you cant get none of that tonight. Until he stepped into a world. Why dont you tell me about your friend daphne. Where there are no rules. Are you arresting me . What is going on . Shes not going to be waking up this evening. Hes looking for a woman no one wants found. Is there anyone with you, a young lady named daphne monet, perhaps. A close personal friend of line. Theyre going to help us find her. No, they cant. Getting in deeper. Daphne is my name, youre looking for me . I dont know if you should think of you as a friend or a private dick. Surrounded by lies. You cant trust me, im the next mayor and a friend of the negro. Seduced by power. If get that by tomorrow morning, going to jail. Ez rollins. Did i have a damn about what you think. You killed her. Dont lie to me. Im coming out. No dont shoot. Were going to the police. Scream, huh . [gunshots] from the Academy Award winning producers of philadelphia and the silence of the lambs, Academy Award winner Denzel Washington, devil in a blue dress a Carl Franklin film. And now some of the books being published this week, South Carolina republican senator tim scott and congressman trey gowdy detail their friendship and time in congress in unfied. In eunice, exploring the life of Eunice Kennedy schriver. And President Trump and the road to unfreedom. And in the nair neuroscientist who lost her mind, she recalls here experiences surviving brain cancer and also, hunting el chapo chronicles dea special agent hunt to capture the mexican kingpin, el chapo. And Martin Luther kings journey to equality in to the promised land. In insane, how america handles mental illness. Andrew yang looks at how technology is displacing jobs and the economy in the war on normal people, look for these titles in coming week and watch for many authors on book tv, on cspa cspan2. Im going to read to you from all quiet on the western front, by eric murray, im doing this because this is a book that when i was asked to find something to read, this is a book that has a mood that i feel, not only about us here in new york, but people all over the world for all kinds of reasons. I hope its clear from the small passage. Gradually a few of us are allowed to get up and i am given crutches to hobble around on, but i dont make much use of them. I cant bear alberts gaze around the room, his eyes follow me with such a strange look so i sometimes escape to the corridor. There i can move about more freely. On the next floor below are the abdominal, spine causes, head wounds and double amputations on the right side of the wing, in the kidneys, the wound, intestines and two fellows die, their limbs turn pale and limbs are stiffen. And their eyes and every two or three hours the vessel is emptied. Other men lie in stretching bandageses with heavy weights hanging from the end of the bed. I see intestine wounds full of excreta. And they show me xray photographs of completely smashed hip bones and shoulders. And life goes its daily round r, this is only one hospital, one single station. There are hundreds of thousands in germany, hundreds of thousands in france, hundreds of thousands in russia, how senseless is anything that can be written, done or thought when such things are possible. It must be all lies, and no thoughts when a culture of a thousand years could not prevent the stream of blood out of these torture chambers and hundreds of Thunder Showers and a hospital alone shows what war is. Im a young man, 20 years old and yet i know nothing of life, but despair, death, fear, and fatuous sorrow. I see how people are set against one near, in silence, foolishly, obediently, innocently enslave one another and the keenest brains of the world have weapons and words and refined and enduring. All men of my age here and there, throughout the world see these things and my generation is experiencing things with me. What would our fathers do, if suddenly we stood up and came before them and proffered our bill. What do they expect of us if a time ever comes when the war is over. Through the years our business has been killing, it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of life is limited to death. What will happen afterwards and what shall come out of us . [applaus [applause]. Host we are back with Walter Mosley with our in depth edition talking about his writing about 50 books he has done with fiction. A reminder to all of you, you can join in on the conversation, eastern and central part of the country, if you live there 2027488200 7488021 and well get back with the phone calls. And we were, viewers were listening to you reading from all quiet on the western front, thats one of your favorite books, i understand . Its a great novel and its a novel in which you understand where from the pedestrian point of view. The foot Soldiers Point of view. Its a gorgeous novel. Theres a place in the middle where hes been in a terrible war and gassed and People Killed and then he goes home for like a furlough for like five days or six days. And how crazy that is and comes back out again and also one of the main characters of the novel is a guy katinski. Everyone else is dying and he comes back with an arm full of cheese and an arm full of wine and two or three women and thats his experience and a lot of that influences my understanding. Host some of the other favored books you told us before we sat down the fire next time, baldwin their eyes were watching god and breath eyes memory. Guest breath eyes memory. Host why those books . Theyre beautiful. She is from haiti and as an incredible lyrical voice. And writing at a time when women had no end of difficulty, you know, coming out as being important, in america in general, women were considered kind of second class and black america was even worse. Shes a beautiful writer. And james baldwin, his understanding of the passion that underlies the politics. You know, not only of being black, but of being black and gay in america, its just gorgeous, gorgeous writer. Host some others, the simple stories. Guest yeah. Host the stranger, lord of light and four quartets. Why those . Four quartets. And hes not my favorite guy politically, but his writing in the four quartets is a poet. The poetry is beautiful. Lord of light, i mentioned when you asked me, its a speculative fiction novel. Its not really fantasy or Science Fiction, but speculative fiction and glazny is a great writer. Word after word, he pulls you right in in a way that i think is amazing snoot and your favorite sky phi books, city and the stars, hot house. Guest hot house. Host excuse me. Guest and thats also, i mean, really, he understood things about plants when he wrote that book, putting it like a billion years in the future, but he understood things about plants that people didnt start getting to until decades after he wrote the books. How they think, move, respond. You know, we thought plants are plants, they grow kind of like a fungus. No, they have a different kind of intelligence. Host do those books inspire your Science Fiction writing . I love Science Fiction and every one, starting with danny dunn at 10 00 until rogers left. Host why did you decide you wanted to write Science Fiction . Its interesting, Science Fiction is so important. You look at someone like jules verne, jules verne defined the following century with his inventions and novels that read became real, a submarine, rockets to the moon, all kinds of stuff. Look at things like, for instance, star wars. The original 77, like, there are no black people in star wars. I dont think there are any people who dont have blue eyes in star wars. Its like a you know, like a racist dream. Theres only going to be one kind of people so its i think its very important to if im going to imagine myself, i have to imagine myself in the future and i have to imagine other people in the future so i get that. I mean, gene rodlebury knew it with star trek, but the idea of creating a future that reflects the political, social and technological advance that i see following me in that direction. Host and again, lets go through some of the Science Fiction books youve written and always no. Host futureland, excuse me. Guest futureland. Host 47, the wave. Whans your scien whats your favorite Science Fiction youve written. To imagine the entire universe that was subsumed inside of one Great Machine that had a moral response to its creators. That was they were wrong and so the machine withdraws and comes to earth. And so you have these two characters, a black man and a white woman who kind of unite with this machine to try to protect the universe from these aliens that the machine hates. You know, it was so much fun, you know, to write that and to, you know, to imbue people who seem to be kind of, you know, maybe hopeless or powerless, but to give them more power than anyone could imagine. Almost all the Science Fiction books have a unifying, the wave, the coal mine where does that come from . I dont know. I wonder if other people know. Because its not an idea, you know, that i have, its understanding. You know, another thing that i do in books. You know, most a lot of the Science Fiction in movies and in america, theres an invasive alien force that could be anything from a werewolf or invaders from mars to invade humanity. I usually flip that on its head and humanity is the dangerous thing and trying to wipe out incredibly beautiful alien mind that dont understand why humans hate them. I like doing that more. Host youve touched on this a little bit, but most of the many of the books pose the questions are humans unique or invaluable in the larger frame of the universe . Its all of that. The universe houses forms and bodies and intelligences that, you know, humans, we just dont get it. We dont understand. We think, you know, we think still like children do, that everything surrounds us, that everything circles around us. Either its better than us, less than us or hates us and really, its nothing like that. Its if we can accept more, larger, deeper, different then we can go to those places. Host then we evolve . Change at any rate. Host and what does that look like then . Well, you know, it depends on whats real and whats not. Usually, often, in my books, one person decide that they want to help the alien exodus, lets say this, an exodus to earth. They want to help that exodus and that one person making that one decision might actually save the potential for humanity in the future. And you know, listen, when i say it, wow, theres a political message there and i was never thinking it when i was writing it. And it ends with a set to destroy humanity and merge, stepping stone. Is merge and in that, its about the predominantly what are you talking about. I know in futureland, the end of the book, still buy the book, its a good book, but at the end of the book, theres one group of people create a virus thats supposed to kill all people of color and quote, only white people survive, but one of my heroes, there are many heroes in the book. One of my heroes, alters the virus just slightly and what happens is, it kills everybody whos not at least oneeighth black, but it turns out there are all of these socalled white people who survive because theyre oneeighth black because they dont know it. So, me surviving means i have to recognize that im part of the people i was trying to kill. Host lets go back to calls. Elaine has been waiting in st. Louis. Elaine, welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you for facilitating this most appreciated and Outstanding Program and thank you, especially, mr. Mosley for sharing your art, humor, and expertise on this most uplifting Easter Sunday program. Your words are truly a godsend. I really enjoyed your well, thank you. Caller youre welcome. Id like to flip the switch to my recent read down the river unto the sea. Guest yes. Caller i found that very enenlightening. I loved the way you weave the characters name into the story. And i found that so humorous and price called up pictures of an elegant elder that eluded wisdom. I loved the way you stimulated my vocabulary. I could go on and on about the book. [laughter] but i wanted to ask about this quote because it was deep. And the main character, the Fallen Police officer, i forgot his name, it was on a long list at the library for the book and i forgot to king oliver. Caller king, yes. Guest yeah. Caller i like the rooms, following them proves to me that im a civilized man and boy, did that get me thinking. I live in the inner city of st. Louis. Youve been here. Ive seen you. And i followed the rules, too. That was such a powerful statement. It wrapped up everything to me. What were you trying i hope im on the right track. Were you trying that in order for us to live and to be proud of this experience that we have to embrace those rules and stand for those rules, but we must hold those rules accountable . Am i on the right track . No, i think youre absolutely on the right track. One of the things is, hes following the rules and hes following the rules for the police department, you know, and for order in new york, but hes slowly discovers that not all the police are following the rules, that he is find himself alone and that in following the rules, hes going to be breaking the rules. But if he follows the rules which hes always done, hes always going to be breaking another set of unspoken rules. Host jennifer in oakland, california. Youre next. Caller hi, greta and mr. Mosley. I love cspan and watch it especially in depth. And today my question is kind of a trivial question. I love that lapel pin and i wonder if it has significance. I love your work. I love your work. Guest thats fine, im listening. My pin is part of my work, its just another part of it. It doesnt have significance other than the fact that i love i saw it like in a actually it was in an airport and i saw it and i went, wow, i love that pin and i never see people wearing pins, im going to buy this and i did, its this dalmation. Its great. I dont know a dalmation, im not thinking about dalmations, but i do love the pin. Thank you. Guest and my ring. Thank you. My ring is another thing, its from ghana royal african gold, 200 years old, a kings ring and very small among kings ring, i saw it and it said youve got to get me. A collector of african antiquities had it in the Puck Building in new york. Host hello, theresa. Caller hello and, hello mr. Mosley. Thank you for taking my call. I first have to say to mr. Mosley, i love you, i had to say it and there it is. Guest thank you. Caller and i also love your writing. When im reading your books i always feel like im right there with the characters and i love that about your books. The question that i have is could you or would you offer suggestions or advice for developing dialog for characters . Characters . Sure. I have that. You should probably look at my book this year you write your novel because i talk about that and i say some things i saw now. Ill stay now. One of the things i find about writing. Writing in general and writing dialog and specifically is when we write, thats one experience. Thats one way that we do things. We write and its just, you know, we put the words down and those words arent necessarily reflective of our oral experience. But, so, when i finish writing a section of a novel or a whole novel, at some point i sit down and i read the whole thing into a tape recorder. I just read everything. When you read dialog outloud, you go, oh, nobody would talk like this . Or thats great. Or i need to flip that around or make it shorter. A lot of the critique that you can make of the writing, you can do by yourself. Just by reading it out loud. Host anita, oak grove. Anita what state are you in . Oak grove. Host illinois . Missouri. Host oh, missouri. Go ahead, anita. Caller hello, mr. Mosley, i cant tell you how important this is for me to be speaking to you, im almost nervous. Thank you for the brim that youre wearing, first of all. Thats the coolest thing. My dad had that and he said this is my string stingy brim remember him saying that. As a black woman writing all my life for some reason or another, i cant and i see that youre going to put out this book for writing. One of my questions, everyone is saying you need to get an agent. You need to do this if youre going to be publish, you need to selfpublish. How do you get that down on the paper and get it to someone . How dos that happen . I know that every time i write something on facebook or to my friends, they say you need to write a book, you need to write a book. Since i was 10 years old and now im kind of looking how do i push this up . Because i dont see that many black women writers anymore, i see a few, i see a few, as a boomer, people are beginning to think that the life that we had in the 70s, 80s and 90s are insignificant and thats what i know. Guest if its good writing, people read it. What its about, ancient romans or ethiopians, about 10,000 years in the future. If they like the writing, if they like the story. If its about humanity, dont worry about the ukt is subject. The book i wrote you write your novel, there are a ways to go about it. You can look up selfpublication aaldc, aabc is one. 0 that helps with selfpublishing. Another thing is this, if you read a book and you like that book and you think your writing is someone like what that book was, you can call the publisher, get to the editor, ask who represents that writer, what agent represents them and calls that agent and tell that agent i think ive written Something Like this other book that youve represented and how can i get it to you. Theyll usually say send us a chapter and lets take a look and well see if thats true. And also, taking courses in writing classes, you meet her people that are trying to do the same thing so theyll share that information and the teachers often have that kind of information. So, you might not need the class, but you do need to meet those people. So there are a variety of ways to go about doing it. Host and what writing conferences. Ronald rushing on Facebook Says he met you i met Walter Mosley, he writes, at the conference back in the day around 1997. He was wonderful. Tony morrison was there and i had the pleasure of meeting Gwendolyn Brooks and other black writers at the same event u i think the conferences are good because you go to different lectures and panels and you meet people and talk to people and you get to you kind of pick up things that you might not know youre learning, you know, at that time. Theres a great writers happening across the street from where we are right now at thriller fest, next to Grand Central station, where they teach you how to pitch to agents. They have agents there to talk to. Its every summer, its called thrillerfest, one word. Thrillerfest, thats a good thing to go to and they have a lot of information. Host and for our viewers, marv 22nd through the 26th we went to a conference and thats weekend on book tv next weekend, on saturday. Well hear from willie next in waco, texas. Hi, willy. Caller good afternoon. Host hi. Caller mr. Mosley, happy easter to you and the young commentator thats working with you. Im dd i watched book tv often weekends. Never have called in to cspan before out of years and years of watching, but today, as i was watching cspan and your program come up, i was fascinated and ran to my phone and i was determined to talk to you. And so my question is to you, is again, happy easter to both of you and i feel so blessed today is the day gods son rose from the grave. My question is what do you do for recreation or things like fishing, going to the flea market on the weekends . Do you like to hunt rabbits, working in the flower bed. [laughter]. Caller and thats what my question is to you. Host okay, willy. Guest thank you very much. I live in new york, no flower beds or rabbits. I draw, i really enjoy drawing, im really bad at it, but ive been doing it for 50 years and its kind of a release. I like, you know, i like just kind of being out in the streets with people and doing things, i like to go to events a lot. Last night, i want to a play, but was a lot of fun called kings. I think the last night its playing at the public theater. A friend of line was in the play and i like that. One of the interesting things, the thing i love doing the most is right. I love it. And so, anything that happens to do with writing and me writing and other people writing, im really doing that. Host what about cooking . Do you like to cook . You write about it. Guest my father cooked every day as a kid. And i cook every day now. Every day, but its, you know, like something that you do that you have to do. Like drinking water. Its really good if youre dying of thursday, but you drink water every day anyway. Its not that i enjoy it, but its something that i do. I like to cook, i like to cook for myself. Im very interested, i love how foods work and work everywhere. I love the places that have great food, new york, san francisco, new orleans, you know, i love good foods. He prides himself putting a meal on the table five minutes after the people in the room are hungry. A lot of time, im a gourmet cook and only cook once every month and i have special things all over the place. In the refrigerator there should be something in there i could make a meal out of, you know, that meal might be different than anything ive cooked before, but, you know, thats actually, you know the house wives relationship to cooking. You know, that i my job is to feed these people, you know, its not to ai aggrandize myself as a cook, you have to be eating. It has to be good for you and like enough to eat. Host darryl in cleveland, ohio. Caller hello. Its such an honor to speak to you guys today. A dedicated fan of cspan over 20 years now. Mr. Mosley, you are youre the voice of the voiceless. When i saw the movie always outnumbered and always outdone, i damn near cried because youre speaking to the heart of so many people that just dont no one would listen to us. And i think about the movie angelas ashes and how he wrote about the irish and their plight. But i want to say to you, keep doing what youre doing. When i think of you, im significant of sanchez, bill wooks, Toni Morrison and Norman Mailer and i saw him on an interview once and says that he feels that miles davis, that he was a vessel for miles davis and John Coltrain and i see that youre giving us an inspiration. Im a young artist, too, but i like to cook and you like to grill and gives such pleasure knocking pots and pans around in minutes and seeing their response, but on this one occasion where i saw where ali alice barker was on book tv and one woman called in and she said, you gave me a hug and she said i was hooked on drugs and now im a counselor for this Community Service place. The woman started crying and the host started to cut her off and alice said, no, no, let her finish speaking and she says, honey, when you hug me, you hug me like my grandmother would and you gave me inspiration to get up off the ground and start walking like a real woman. And she says, i have done some bad things in the streets and alice walker immediately said to her your tears are the window washers to the soul. Well, mr. Mosley, your writings are the window washers to our hearts. Thank you so much for what youve done all of these years. Guest thank you, i appreciate it. Host for those who hant read always outnumbered and always outgunned. Guest i will, but first, i know almost every he listed, most of them i met. One i know well is Sonya Sanchez and i was walking across Grand Central station and 10,000 people were there and sonya is 4 foot 11 or something, and there was a tall young black man in a uniform, 6something and he sees her and says miss sanchez. She says, yes, yes, dear. And she takes him brother, she takes him by his hand. And he starts talking about his sister and his sister, she was pregnant and there was a guy, but the guy disappeared blah, blah, blah and sonya cut him off and she said, does she want to have that baby. He said yes, i think she does, miss sanchez. And she said here is my phone number, im on the train and ill be in philadelphia by 11 00, you have her call me and were going to talk, but thats that thing that i so respect. And sonya, is so extraordinary and such a wonderful individual and shes there in the world for the people, you know . And her poetry there is in the world for the people. We just you know, its just a wonderful thing. Like elliott who i love, the peoples poet is yates. Yates wrote about what the irish were experiencing and if you write about whats real, then, you know, you exhort more. Host what were you thinking when that caller was comparing you . Its hard to think that stuff about yourself because youre going through life in a pedestrian kind of way. And you know your flaws. Other people dont know that. Im not this, not that. But again, its something that i try to do and i think that my work tries to do it and i know its true for sonya and so many other people. Host how do you do that and always outnumbered, always its about an excon who committed a crime and he really did it and now hes out and trying to be better. Hes trying to be better because a young boy, who has also committed a terrible driem and he crime and he finds this kid and knows if he wants to help this kid to become a better person he has to become a better person himself. And its about that life and so, life, you know, its really close to the streets and really close to the bone. Its really improverished. Its not like some kid who is going to be the prince or king or whatever. Theyre trying to live daytoday for their reality. And the main character . Socrates, hes struggling to be a better person and to overcome how his own nature, which is pretty violent and angry. His own guilt for the things that hes done. So he learns, in order to be a better person and help this kid be a better person, i have to be a better person, but in order to help my community to be better i have to forgive myself. Host kb in cleveland, ohio. Thanks for taking the call and thanks for the id like to ask a couple of questions, one, what does he think of george jm james and two, the tragic 9 11 tragedy deserves examination . And does it merit about, three, why is there a limit on george w. Bush library there in texas . Thank you very much for taking the call. Guest i dont know the answer to some of those questions. But i think that the central to the question, which opens itself up for a kind of a general interpretation is about 9 11 and that i find i think that most of the events that happen in the world deserve selfexamination, meaning to say like what is my part in the world in general . How do my actions, my taxes, my rengs, my people, my gender. How do all of those things inform whats happening in the world . You know, because we politics inment a broad sense vile people and after the conclusion and war on terrorism, and how is my everyday action contributing to the pain in the world today . And if i am able to assuage that pain, can i make a better world. Sometimes you have to fight and you have to kill and you have to blow up things, but doing that is not going to make a better world. It might make one safer in some place. Might achieve revenge in some way, but in the end. What we have to do is make a better world. Which is representing rather than hurting. Welcome in california, welcome to the conversation. Caller hello. Guest hi. Caller first of all, i have to thank mr. Mosley for years ago when i was working as a library, i cant remember which of the books it was, and carried most out of the hospital and i wondered what happened to the characters and so i wrote him a letter to i do to a lot of authors, and he wrote back and he said have patience and eventually he did write about it again and i appreciate that. What i had said i wanted to talk about was always always outnumbered and always outgunned and walking the dog. And people ask me for recommendations and i recommend socrates. In my mind, two Great American philosophers of the 20th century, one man was john wooden and socrates and i revisit the tarks and i want to thank you for everything youve written and especially for those characters who struck me to such an extent. Thank you. Yeah, and thats i do want to say to you that theres a third socrates collection called the right mistake which i think is okay, too. It follows socrates and i really appreciate your comments. Host why did you decide that mouse could or leave the question out there that mouse could be dead . I dont remember why i thought that. It was just a because im writing, like i say, its almost kind of like free style, im writing and writing and you know, mouse gets shot. I never thought he was dead, but you know, and eta may takes him out of the hospital and unbeknownst to us he takes him to mama joe. Like if anybody could raise somebody from the dead, its mama joe and she does, you know, and thats just there was just a moment because mouse was so powerful inside of the books, i had to get rid of him for a while so i could figure him out and that worked for me. Host and following that book, hes trying to figure out whether hes alive or dead. Why is that important for the character . It allows mouse to be there for audience, but at the same time its easy making decisions and understanding who he is out of the negative space snoot greta in mt. Vernon, indiana, i think it is. Caller yes, thats correct. Thank you to book tv. And i want to thank mr. Mosley for being so gracious and articulate during his interview. I first heard of mr. Mosley as a mystery writer from bill clinton a number of years ago in an interview. Maybe early days of his presidency and i was curious and immediately went out and checked out devil in a blue dress, did that give you a boost in your recognition as an author and a writer . Are there other wellknown people who cherish you as one of their favorite writers . Well, there are a lot of people who like my writing. Some of them are kind of wellknown. You know, ive given books to all kinds of people on all over the speck frum and between, you know, clinton and orrin hatch, but i think the impact he did have a big impact on my career and it was like the news people. So whenever i would go somewhere and somebody would ask people, from a newspaper, a magazine, Television Show would you like to talk to Walter Mosley . Yeah, hes the one that clinton liked. Yeah, ill talk to him. People arounded world that i dont know how many books that sold, but i think that Denzel Washington, the journal iveng world made more attention to me because of clinton. Host which of the books have sold the most . Do you know . Probably devil in a blue dress, i cant think of anything that would have sold more than that. Could be a lot of those books. Host well go to linda next, spokane, washington. Hi, linda. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. Ive been enjoying the program and i appreciate this opportunity. I work in a small indy bookstore and i love talking about your books with customers. I love your writing primarily because youre able to talk about a lot of different kinds of communities that some of us are obviously not a part of and you help us understand people that are, but you also at the same time manage to write about the human condition and it covers everyone so we can all relate to it as well. I could go on and on, but i want to ask you, you mexed a couple of times where your ideas come from, from your sleep sometimes and from the little bit of writing that i do. I see advice that says write for yourself and not for the reader. I wonder if you could comment about that, if theres a balance you find in your own writing or if you lean one way or the other, okay . Okay. First i want to thank you for working in an indy bookstore and for keeping indy book stores alive. Its really important for literature. When people ask me who is your audience, i tell them this. I had a favorite cousin named Alberto Jackson who was much older and used to babysit me and she was a wonderful woman. I loved her. She may great hamburgers. She would attack me while were watching want to movies at night. I would imagine i was in the train and a talking to alberta and she says, walter, whats a friend of yours, miles, what s he doing . I would tell her the story about mouse. My audience is somebody who sitting behind us overhearing the conversation of me talking to alberta. Thats how i figure it appeared i imagine the best possible light to illuminate my story which is alberta and i told her the story and anybody else who hears it im sure theyre going to like it. Host who are you talking to in little scarlet when you write about the riots . This is easy rawlins with the white principal of the school he works at. Is explaining to her about the riots and you write if you come down in fifth award in houston or harlem every so you come upon has been threatened and beaten and jailed. If you have kids they will be beaten and no matter how far back you remember there is a beat waiting for you. When you see some men stopped by the cops and some poor mother crying for his release it speaks to you. You dont know that women are known if that man has done something wrong but it doesnt matter. You have been there before and its hot and you are broke and the people have been doing this to you because of your skin for more than your mothers mother can remember. Guest well, yeah, thats exactly the anger of the riots. I was writing about the rights and remembered them quite well. I was in los angeles, the original once it 65. I remember it so well under remember the experience, and its so funny because so many of the people just didnt understand because they didnt understand the lives of the people. They didnt understand what was going on in those peoples lives and so they said why are you writing . Everything is fine. To begin with everything at that moment was not fun. Thats not enough reason to riot. Riot. But nothing had ever been fun. People have been lynched, burned, enslaved, beaten and killed, and people were excluded from all kinds of jobs and all kinds of institutions and all kinds of spaces. My father used to tell me when he was in fifth ward and fats waller would come to houston, the first five nights it was only for white audiences. It was only on the last night on the six night that a black audience could hear fats waller. I said thats terrible. It was but it didnt matter because every night of the first five nights after hes finished playing for the white people he would come down to some juke joint in fifth ward and he would play for us all night long. Even the fact you have to do that, it makes you happy and it makes you angry. Everybody was angry, and that was something part of writing this book was to kind of explicate that anger. Host did the right change anything . Guest it changed a lot. Riots. Nobody was aware of the anger of black people because there were not anybodys life ever. But after the riots happened somebody would say well, does everybody down there feel like this . Most people down here, 90 feel like this and theres another 10 who are really mad. That caused the country to think, we have to change. It brought about a lot of change. Not enough but it brought about a lot, and a lot of things at different in america. You know, helping people, Opening Doors that had been closed. A lot has happened which a lot of people say the riots are terrible. Stupid people burned down the neighborhoods but it made a big difference in america. Host the same time youre the influence of Martin Luther king. Guest Martin Luther king came to los angeles after the riots. Only kenneth hahn came to talk to him in City Government and elect the next day, and on the way out a reporter says what do you think that los angeles can do to make things better . King said, with the representatives you have, theres nothing you can do. He just left. This is a man who would been fighting equal rights mississippi, alabama, but los angeles he said, he just threw up his hands, im leaving. Host what are your thoughts as we approached put h anniversary of his assassination next week, april 4 . Guest you know, Martin Luther king said a great thing once to a friend of mine. They were talking and king said, you know, as i i look at the ns and see whats happening in the world i think that we may be trying to integrate ourselves into a a burning house. And my friend said, so if thats the case what should we do . And he said, we are going to have to become firemen. Whether its the 50th 50th anniversary or the 51st for the 37 or the 129th, his understanding of the duty that we all americans have is really a very special thing. Host albert in chicago. Caller albert in chicago. Guest thats right. Host thats you. Caller my comment is i want to take mr. Mosley for being here today and my comment is about i did know he was a humanitarian. How did he become a humanitarian . He spoke about were supposed help each other. I like that part and im trying to be a writer. Guest well okay. When you say he, you are calling Martin Luther king or talking about me . I was a little confused about that. Host when you talking about mr. Mosley . Caller i was talking that mr. Mosley. He sounds like a humanitarian. Guest i i certainly am. Im a humanitarian ally exist in a certain place. I exist like what i feel is a long lineage of black male heroes will want to celebrate and i want to show the rest of the world how wonderful and great these black men are and have been. As far as being a writer, listen, thats great, be a writer. The only thing you have to do to be a writer is get up and write everyday for a couple of hours. Do that for a year and look back at what you wrote and then figure out where you are going. Host how did you start . You are a Computer Programmer. When did you decide im going to be a writer fulltime . Guest one keep i keep on saying is i started writing across the street from where were sitting right now. I was in the old Mobil Oil Building a Computer Programmer working on the weekends, and i been writing this program in this language called rpg and i was tired of its i decide to write a sentence. I wrote a sense that was on hot sticky days in southern louisiana the fire ants swarmed. I knew that was a good line. I read a lot of books and thought that would be a good line for first book. I knew it was fiction because never been to louisiana and ive never seen a fire and so i was making it up. I said im going to try to be a writer, and i kept trying and i finally made it. Host who inspired you . Guest no one. Honestly, lots i could see everyone. When i was a kid, so when he did that i was 34. Before i was 34 i never thought about being a writer. But but when i was a kid my father was the greatest storyteller. I i love you because he was my father but when we would have parties my father would start telling stories and edwin would be laughing or be moved or worry or whatever. I think kind if they can unconsciously my father said this is who you should be. You should cook and you should tell good stories. Host janet in mississippi. Caller hello. Guest high. Caller i would like to know have you ever thought of any of your writings ever going to playwrights, like the theater, broadway like August Wilson . He had several of his writings and so forth in theater. Would you think yours would be looked at in the theater, what have you . Guest ive written a couple of plays. They have been produced. I i wrote a play called the fall of heaven. It got produced in six or seven different cities come in cincinnati and st. Louis and chicago. You know, people like them. Its kind of a difficult world. I am always amused by place because of right place but the place i go to a and c and the place i write are very different. Right now im working on trying to create a musical for devil in a blue dress. Ive written a book which is the play and my friend, a very talented musician and actor, is working on the lyrics and the composition. Host do you have a timeframe . Guest as soon as possible. We will see. Hopefully we will do a couple of readings of it this summer. Host great. Robert in nashville, tennessee. Caller good, hello. My name is robert rivers. Im from as you said in nashville, tennessee, area originally i was all that im 73. I was home from greenville, mississippi, in the 40s, 50s, 60s, was a great Literary Center for the delta area. Pretty well known. Hotting a card or in my years was the owner of the delta democrat times carter which was a known aggressive newspaper in the south. Ive read a couple of your books. I have the last days of ptolemy grey. Great collector of books. I just cant get rid of them, but im inclined toward the interracial relationships over the last decades, particularly because of my history being from mississippi. And i was just wondering, as a writer becomes extremely well known and apparently influential, does mr. Mosley still like that there is a responsibility, major or minor, for writers to present themselves into the sociopolitical events . Does he feel that just besides their individual writings and influence they would have that personally it is positive or negative to inject their personal feelings outside of their writings into these events, particularly the way it is right now . Thank you. Guest you know, its an interesting question. Im like very politically activ active, the way writers would be, and im not running for office and and not even supporting anybody running for office because i know better. I try to comment on things, but there are two things to say about that. Number one, i would never tell another writer what they should or shouldnt do, how they should talk, if they should talk, should the injected themselves or should they not. I would never say that because writers have to do what they can do. If they come to a place that i respect, great. If they dont, great. They are writers. I was on an internet Television Show recently, six months ago, a little bit more, and there were like four four journalists andr five. I dont understand how that got done but were all talking and everybody is talking about a news, fake news, and they are mad and said we have to convince people that fake news is just a madeup term and we are real journalists and saying real things. I was nodding and listen and find a said yeah, but you have to understand like this, im a black man in america. Ive been listening to fake news for 400 years. So if theres any legacy that trump leaves behind him, it is that there is fake news. Im right there with that, you know. Im not sure if it is against him but it sure exists. Host defined what it means. Guest Walter Cronkite for years talking about vietnam as if its a sensible war and were winning and would therefore a good reason, and the vietnamese are a threat to the United States and one day he comes on ss ivan sang the stuff for years but its not true and its not real and we are not winning. They may not even be our enemies in the people we are supporting our dictators. He just, it was nice to hear a moment of real news after years and years and years and years of lies, basically. Host Christmas Black is one of the characters who is a soldier, fought in vietnam, of the worst as well. Is he that voice, that voice what voice is the . Guest i think christmas is an interesting character because he comes from like a military family, a black military family that goes all the way back to the revolution, the american revolution, and they have been fighting and the been part of the army and have done all this stuff. He is at the very end of that and he is kind of floundered, kind of saying 15 we are so proud of is the sin we have committed. He doesnt even know how to deal with it, and its a wonderful moment to have somebody say, ive been wrong. And its the hardest thing to say ive been wrong. I have thought this, ive said this, ive done this but i have been wrong. Host he fought in vietnam and comes back. Whats the difference between Christmas Black and africanamerican west fought for the United States in vietnam and somebody like easy rawlins who fought in world war ii and has come back . Easy rawlins refers to feeling patriotic when he fought in world war ii. Guest its an interesting thing. One of my dear friends is a black publisher name paul coates. Hes among other things the father of Tanehisi Coates but hes a wonderful guy in the 60s he was the head of the panthers in baltimore. Hes done a lot. When he went to vietnam, he when you ask him about it, or you against it . He said when i went there i thought i was john wayne. Its kind of wonderful for black men to think hes john wayne and hes fighting for liberty. I think he was disabused of this notion, you know, while he was there. He came back and his politics came up and he joined the panthers, et cetera. Then became a librarian and is now a publisher. I think a lot of people, especially young man, want to believe in what they are doing in wartime, and they are fighting. They want to believe that the anger inside of them, which is kind of natural, as a reason and a purpose and a patriotism. But often find out well, its not true. Thats true for mark in all quiet on the western front. I think its true for a lot of germans in world war ii. I think its true for a lot of russians also in world war ii. In every war theres a moment where you may feel like wow, this was wrong. I made a mistake. Sometimes not. American revolution i think people agreed. The civil war, im not sure if either side ever thought they made a mistake. But i think many sides made a lot of mistakes. Host i saw where muhammad ali shaped your thinking about the vietnam war. Guest that was so interesting, wonderful about muhammad ali. I think that indeed he was the greatest. Im not sure about the rain. Im not sure if he every really beat kenny norton or not, but i think that his ability, his physical genius, which all really great sports people have, his physical genius morphed into kind of a social political genius. I think in the beginning him joining the nation of islam was part of that, but then when he stood in front of anybody who would listen, a lot of college students, a lot of people in the nation of islam and of the people, and he said look, im not going to vietnam because nobody in the account ever called me [bleep]. Really . Its poetry. I know like it always did little poetry stuff but that was more poetry and all of that rhyming stuff that he did because its, its so true. Like im going to go kill somebody who doesnt anybody against me . For the people where everything against me . And really as a kid, and i know now that he helped for my thinking i dont think i knew it been because i think was just everywhere. It was in the atmosphere. Host you out old . Guest when that happened, when was he i was probably 14, 15 years old. Host and you were talking the way muhammad ali was talking about the war but you did realize it was him try to i wasnt thinking that it was him. People say are you going . No. Two reasons. First, i dont want to get hurt. I do want to get shot or killed or anything. And second, i dont have anything against those people. Why would i want to go shoot some guy in vietnam . What sense does it make . Its a far way i couldnt even imagine it. Hes the one who told me that. Host patrick, you on the air with Walter Mosley. Caller yes, thank you for taking my call. Mr. Mosley, first of all i want to thank you for the earlier comment you made on reading. That is the closest thing to active my and i take that as a new quote from my life. I have two questions. You have written about a lot of characters and a want to ask how did this characters compare to what happened 20 years ago and what is happening today . And then the other question i have is, how would you describe White Privilege . And can black people develop black privilege . Because Abraham Lincoln said at one time that privilege comes with power, and that almost every man can withstand adversity, but if you want to test the character of a man, give him power. I just need to hear your input on that and also tell you today that you have just changed my life. You mentioned you were a Computer Programmer. Im an engineer, and ive always thought about writing but i never took interest in the political or literary readings, but after listening to you, for some reason i dont watch this station that often. Something pushed me to listen to you today. So i want to thank you and may god bless you i do want you to keep going, keep on going with what you are doing. Host all right, patrick. Guest the first thing about what happened 20 years ago and today, i dont think theres a lot of difference. I think you see the way i look at the world. The germans lament world war ii, but the americans are happy about it, but the americans lament that the minds the vietnamese war because of mistake. And boy, the war in iraq is really a mistake. We begin to think this. I kind of forgot the second question. Host White Privilege. Guest White Privilege, thats it. Its interesting. White privilege is different at different times. There was a time people in america would say i am free, white and over 21. That meant they could do anything. That was then. Today, White Privilege is a long ago, faraway dream that a lot of white people are really unhappy socalled white people are unhappy about. They say i used to be in control. I used to have everything. I used to be able to work hard and do this and do that and retire and take care of my kids and everything was fine, and that has been taken away. And its true. It has been taken away. We never had it really, but socalled White America did have it. So White Privilege has become more of the fantasy or a longago memory than a reality that theres a rich privilege here thats for sure. Theres rich privilege but i think thats all there is to it. That the rich have privilege and anybody else kind of thanks wistfully about the past that they mightve had at some time or another and they would like to have it again. You know, make america great. Host is it capitalism that a gas created it and may have destroyed it . Guest i think that, both, i think early occurrences of capitalism where you want land, well, just kill all the natives on the link and then it is yours. Or you want to build great fonts and plantations and houses and roads, just take a whole bunch of slaves and make them do it and you have to pay them. They have nothing but you have everything. I think thats the early parts of it. Thats when it got built, and now you have today where more and more of the wealth is in the hands of the very few. People think wealth is limitless but its not. Wealth is based on labor. Labor is finite. If wealth is based on labor and labor is finite then wealth is also find it if the average income of every person in the world is lets say, should be 80,000, that means every but in the world should have 80,000 this year. But if a person has 100,000 or 200,000 or 1 a billion dollar 200 billion, those dollars have become out of the pockets of all of the 80,000 people. The more and more that wealth combined in the middle and aggregates there, then the poor and poor anybody elses and the wealth reflects their wealth reflects this. In china its a low bit worse than it is here, but here no one has enough money. Host would our history be different if we lived, if we had a different institution, socialism . Guest im not sure that socialism is you know, it would be good to say theres capitalism and their socialism but i dont think thats true. We have to be aware of the system of wealth. As soon as you have abstract forms like money, banks, interest, you have capitalism. It doesnt matter if it is called socialist, i. E. China, or a monarchy. It doesnt matter. As soon as you have like printed money and somebody is making profit by moving that money around, not things but money, then you have capitalism. The thing is that we had to be aware of the systems that we work in and we have to control it in such a way that not all of the wealth is siphoned out of our pockets. Thats the thing. Its certainly not like people to get from white people and will its that white people taking from black people. Its the institution itself taking it and we have to have more control over it. Thats all. Host lets get in a few more phone calls. Sean in hawaii. Caller from hawaii. Host go ahead. Caller very erudite expiration for everything so far so i do not have to answer, as the question. If you had one last meal to eat, what would it be . How to drinking influence your writing before want to crank and now that you drink . Thank you. Guest what would i eat . Host your last meal. Guest it would be blue crab gumbo, my god, with sausage and some fried okra, shrimp. Blue crab elbow. Definitely be the last i wouldve hated if that was my last new but i would love that. The other question was host im blinking now, too. We dont have them on the light anymore. Maybe it will come to us. Lets go to john and who is here in new york. Do you have . John, go ahead. Caller good morning. Mr. Mosley, its a pleasure to have you in my house today. Guest thank you, thank you very much. I got interested, i get introduced to you through blue light. Id like you to speak more about that. I love that book. I said that book should become when i read its the first book as soon as i get finished it i read it again. I read over. I read that book several times since because it was so enlightening to me because it transcended race and everything. Use those gifts describe your characters, but i always said that book should be translated into every other language in the world because to give me such a perspective and, it brings people together and enlighten the very much and i thank you for taking my question. Guest thank you. Thank you very much. If theres any book is by favorable, it probably is blue light. I would say that because its only book ive written that a read again. Its i can just sit down and say okay, i do really enjoy reading it. Why i wrote it was that im not in any way a religious or spiritual person. Im not. Im not. I would like to be but im not. Im kind of like i believe like in a materialistic pragmatic universe, with one exception. I believe in the soul. In the notion of the soul. I just feel like i have one. I feel like my thoughts, my personality, my identity transcends my corporeal existence. I wanted to write about it without any confusion about religion or spiritualism or stuff like that. So inviting blue light i wanted to get to a place, theres a moment in blue light where a person is walking back and forth considering who he is inside, what is essence is. I think i got there in that walking back and forth. I wrote the whole book in order to write that. Writing the planets and the light hitting the earth and out transforms people into superior but not necessarily better parts of themselves, so thank you. Thats why i wrote it. I still love it. Host the second part of that question was about drinking and how it influenced your writing while you are drinking and how it is influenced your writing now that you dont drink. Guest but i do drink. Host but for 40 years guest i did drink and it didnt write back and so did matter. I didnt drink but then i started writing and i was just writing and it wasnt drinking. Now i still, my writing and my drinking state very far apart. Like, ill never, like if i drink im not going to be writing. Host why is that . Guest because i get foggy, not more specific. I know a lot of writers who seem to be held and emotionally somewhat, drink and it frees them to express. A lot of poets say that. Thats never been my experience. Host kent is in richmond, virginia. , hello, mr. Mosley. I enjoy your writing for one thing it did for me, it helped me connect with my fathers generation. Im a baby boomer and when i read about all those characters after looking at the janitors i knew in the school and my fathers generation so differently. I want to know how we are able to connect with the generation and then write stories about them . I just saw them as older people. Guest that wasnt my experience. My experience was that when i was a kid back, i was born in 52. When i was a kid who couldnt really, it wouldnt let me go outside by myself. I was around my relatives and my relatives were so, like an interesting. They told these wild stories about fifth board houston, texas, and world war ii at about trouble, i remember my father told me one day that conduct galveston in this big old car, four guys and they were partying all night but now its the next morning, sunday morning, driving back. Three are sleeping so you can see the white guys driving another guy drives in front like in a car and hit another car comes up right behind them and the guy tried says i think we got trouble. And sure enough the guy in the front his brakes and so they had to stop and the other car jumps and both guys come out at the front come back, with the guns but then all four doors like fly open and all the guys in the car come out with their guns. Texas, everybody had again. The other guys got all scared and jumped in the course intro alter off. These are the stories they told me. They held their aspirations, their dreams, humor and those of the stories i wanted to tell. Host why we do not allowed to go outside by yourself . Guest i was like three years old. You would be dead, or five or 70 you could go outside a little bit but after ten minutes, walter, where are you . Im here, dad. Come back in your and and i wod listen to more stories. It was great. Host what about your mom, what impact did she have on you . Guest my mother is a very interesting case. She loves me really deeply but she had a psychological thing where she couldnt express affection. It was really kind of interesting. She was incredibly smart and she went to Hunter High School. She graduated Hunter High School when she was either late 15 are just turned 16 and graduated Hunter College when she was 20. She was really, really smart and really, really independent. She was in los angeles married to a guy come one of the richest guys in los angeles at the time named novak, and she was with him and then she took a job because she was a socialist so she took a job in the school because she had to do the right thing and she met my father. She told me once, she said walter, i met your father and i realize i didnt love my husband. And so i left him and i married your father. It was really kind of, you know, really for like in quotes white jewish woman in the late 40s, early 50s to leave all that wealth to marry this black man, that took a lot of character and a little craziness also i think. So i think that attention to doing or you are and what you want, i get from my mother. Host how did she are both your mother and your father influence your thoughts on not seeing color . Because you say white in quotes. Guest the idea that somebody its a made up the notion of the color lines was a colonization tactic. Read people we kill, black people we enslave. We are the white people. Its just ridiculous. Its so silly. I sit at a table with 12 socalled black people. Not one of us is the same color. Like, what we say. I say are you black . Yes. But what kind of sense does it make . Might make sense but only in the insanity of the asylum that im living in. Its like it doesnt make sense. I dont know like if my parents hate me that or not. I mean, they certainly were not worried about it. Los angeles in an important way, as i get as it is, it is both a segregated by class but when it comes to where you were, everybody works together. You couldnt say im not going to work with that mexican. Okay, that meet your budget with because im going to everybody who can work to come into because they were building in los angeles. The rest of the citys were already built. They were building l. A. They didnt have time to say i can pick and choose among my laborers. Host whats next for you, Walter Mosley . Guest i have a book coming out john woman. Im very excited about that. Thats going to be really good. I just, i was at the public elastic and i ran into a guy whos pretty much running a series that a just wrote an episode for, john sealed in serious but tommy is the guy whos running it and he told me last night he really liked the episode i wrote. Im very excited about that. Its going to be out soon. Like i told you im going to try devil in a blue dress as a musical, trying to make it as a movie. And im working, im working on a lot, and of auditor thinks all at once. Im writing a book which is fine and am writing the the next installment on how to write a novel im calling it the structure of revelation. Host mr. Mosley, thank you for your conversation. Guest thank you very much. Great to be here, greta. When you read the things that were said about Thomas Jefferson that he was an infidel and he was an agent of the french government, sounds a little reminiscent, doesnt it . The things were said about Abraham Lincoln, the things were said about fdr that he wanted to be a dictator, so it does kind of come with the territory but i think in trumps case the least in the modern political era postworld war ii, ive never seen anything like it. Sunday at noon eastern on in depth our life to our conversation with author and faith and Freedom Coalition founder ralph reed. Joint in a conversation with your phone calls, facebook, is, texts and tweets. Watch tvs indepth sunday september 6 at noon eastern on cspan2. Next on cspan2s booktv, Dinesh Dsouza talks about his book United States of socialism. Stacey abrams former democratic candidate for governor of georgia discusses Voter Suppression and civil rights. Her book is our time is now. Later Chris Wallace looks back at the history leading up to the bombing of hiroshima in august 1945. You are watching booktv on cspan2 every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan2 have created by americas cabletelevision company as a Public Service and brought you today i your television provider. Up next on booktvs after words conservative author and commentator Dinesh Dsouza comments on the differences between 20th century socialism and socialism today. Hes anything but author offerd independent Institute Senior fellow benjamin powell. Host so five years ago it would be hard to imagine a book